Here’s the intel I gathered from her over chicken tenders and sliders.

She has her own animation studio located in Langhorne, PA. She specializes in all types of animation, and is currently creating 2d, 3d, and flash animation, motion graphics and graphic design for various clients, ranging from small businesses to Hollywood studios, media companies, and pharmaceutical companies around the world.

A little bit of background on her…. When living out in L.A, she worked in Children’s TV for Cartoon Network as an Art Director, Animator, Storyboard Artist, and Character Designer for popular TV Shows (“Dexter’s Lab” and “Power Puff Girls”). Her own pilot appeared on CN, was optioned by Disney, and was critically acclaimed. Once moving back East, she moved into Commercial Animation as the Creative Director for a company in 3D Pharmaceutical Animation, and then Creative Director and head of Marketing and Interactive Design for a Clothing Manufacturer. She started her company to continue with her passion for all types of Animation.

The premise of the show she created is roughly based on her life as a Korean adoptee; the main character had previously been featured a comic strip by her. The pilot aired in August 17, 2001 on the network as part of their Big Pick competition, a marathon of ten pilots with viewers selecting one to be produced for the network’s fall 2002 season. The series lost second place to Codename: Kids Next Door.

The pilot was created by she and her husband who is also a Korean adoptee. Kim, an adoptee of American-Jewish parents, based the main character on her life experiences as an immigrant. In years prior to making the pilot, she had started a nonprofit organization for helping adopted children locate their biological parents. Her husband felt much of the impetus for the pilot came while searching for his birth family in Korea. However, Kim later remarked that the pilot “had nothing to do with” her life.

The pilot was optioned by The Walt Disney Company before being turned down. Cartoon Network first approached Dunn in Los Angeles, then a comic shop employee who had just moved in. The network, impressed by her work in independent comics which had spread through word of mouth, landed her a job at Cartoon Network Studios, and a few years later, she and her husband produced the pilot.

This all seems amazing but why is she in PA nad not L.A?

She created all of this little greatness with her husband in L.A. He apparently banged his assistant while they were married. Cheated on her with her for a while. Got said assistant pregnant. Kim was already pregnant with a daughter. Kim divorces him and moves back to PA to be around family to raise her little daughter. Career in ruins. Pilot’s a fail. Doesn’t get picked up.

Pregnant assistant has an abortion and leaves Kim’s husband. (Piece of shit) He’s now remarried and has some other kids. Don’t know what the child support number on all that is but I’m sure its steep.

Red flags are waving proud at this lunch but I’ll order an Old Fashioned to steady the nerves.

That was 13 years ago and now she is living here in PA with her daughter. Apparently the kid is amazing and I’m hearing nothing but good things, so as a parent I’m always jubilant about that kind of success.

She said her 13-year-old recently just got boobs but still looks like a little girl. My dark side is struggling with the evil here but I hold fast as a parent and don’t fall into an Asian human trafficking fantasy. I wish Kim hadn’t told me that shit on a first date. It’s just a little weird.

Her daughter is an amazing child who is an A student and a pianist. Dad is out of the picture. I guess that POS is still in L.A. and I can’t believe he isn’t even a presence in his daughter’s life, because even when I felt like I was on my ass I saw Lorelei every other weekend.

Kim hates what’s she’s doing right now. It’s probably some animation/graphic design bullshit because she keeps asking me if we need anything like that for the gym we’re opening. It sounds like she’s on her ass.

(Red flags are still waving proudly in the May afternoon sun outside Misconduct)

We leave the restaurant. The lunch has been good. I walk her to the car park and give her a kiss. She’s hesitant because there is a fat black woman sitting in the lobby of the check out. I don’t care. I wanted to kiss her. I like her.

Sort of.

After the date, we texted over the next few days.

“Morning!”

Loves to text.

“Hi Kim! How are you?”

“Good. You?”

“Doing well. Just going to work. I have some stuff to do this weekend with friends and the business.” (Bold Faced Lie)

“Is there anything that I can do to help with the business? I can always use extra work if you’re comfortable with that.”

(Sounds like she’s out of work)

“But we could meet up again next week for lunch and/or I was thinking movies next weekend? Sorry we’re on different subjects here. How could I help?”

I’m trying to make a second date. Kim is obviously looking for a meal ticket.

“Yeah! That would be fun! Sorry! Promotional video for your online marketing video efforts, maybe working at the tanning salon?”

Now it’s just nuts. I went on one date with this woman. I get her trying to sell me some shit. I’ve been in sales since the 80’s. Suck it. But work at the salon? We have people for that. How fucked are you in your life?

(This is starting to sound like that chick that tried to sell me Amway on a date!)

“We have a video that’s running on a loop monitor in the salon. We’re all staffed up at the salon. (Bold faced lie, Trish is fucking history) I was thinking of us hitting Mac Mart (Awesome mac and cheese joint in Rittenhouse where I know the owners.)

“Oooh Mac Mart. Sure!”

A few days later…

“What are you up to?”

“Sorry. Busy weekend with the sisters and daughter! (Bold faced lie) How are you? Hope yours was good despite the rain.”

“Yeah you don’t text much?”

“No.”

WTF? I’m an adult and I don’t need to be constantly texting anyone. It’s fucking annoying!

“I was kind of sick but it was nice.”

“When I’m with family I’m a bit off the grid. (True. But in this case, a Bold faced lie)

“Sick? What happened?”

“My throat hurt, coughing but I’m doing ok.)

This courtship is amazing romance.

“How are things otherwise?” (Being nice)

Good. (Sends me some drawing of her and her daughter. It looks like daughter drew it and it sucks)

“So Mac Mart?”

I figured one last-ditch effort just to see.

“Oooh You’re not going to come out to me!”

Here we go…

“Great drawing of you and your daughter.” (Bold Faced… oh fuck it.)

“I mean are you ever leaving the city?”

This is when Rittenhouse Bubble phicklephille kicked in.

“What’s the point? I could rent a car or do a Zip car to come see you no problem.”

“Oh. Well then it was nice knowing you.”

(Really, washed up animator who would work in a tanning salon?)

“Oh ok.”

“If you can’t try to see me… Then.”

And that was it. I never heard from Kim again.

Do I care? Not in the slightest. But I think we could have had some fun going to see some films at the Ritz.

*YAWN

Onward we go!

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish Monday through Friday at 8am EST.

Music. I’m a vinyl collector. Old jazz, soundtracks well almost everything. Sometimes just for the album art, XTC, Nina Simone, Iron and Wine, Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, New Order, Morrissey, Donovan, Dylan, Lennon, every kind of music on my iPod, I am open to checking out any kind of music.

“Paint job’s ok, but there’s rust, and the chrome is nowhere near what it once was. No way. Pieces fall away every year, now more than ever. But the car still runs, and when I drop the clutch and go, the car sings a symphony better than any new hybrid I’ve ever met in the last 10 years.”

“Write drunk and edit sober.” – Ernest Hemingway

I feel like I’m midnight blue ’67 Pontiac GTO All original parts, some missing.

The car looks decent despite it’s age.

The engine and spirit of the car are great and it can still get up and roar against any new car off the lot, but its an old machine.

It’s falling apart but “the Goat” is still very valuable and has a lot of great history and memories in it. The upholstery is fraying. There’s a bit of rust. The struts are going’ the transmissions fucked.

The oil sometimes leaks.

The car is old.

The car is slowly falling apart.

I feel it.

But as a machine it’s still a badass ’67 GTO.

People love it. Girls love it, but if they looked under the hood they’d see that the beast is starting to fail.

It looks like a worn car form 40 years ago but it still runs great on the track based on its current performance, but inside it’s going.

It’s just time and gravity.

The power plant can somehow burn it up like when it was born but in the day-to-day, if you spend any time with the car you’ll learn that it’s seen a lot of miles and is now missing some parts. There has been no restoration. It still runs but with fewer parts than when it arrived off the assembly line.

The car was driven hard and saw some glory days and won a lot of races, but it lost a lot too, and suffers the scars of going through the guard rail and flipping over.

There’s been a little restoration on the mind of the car and that’s what held it together all these years but its had some really shitty owners and drivers that took this lovely car and ran it into the ground.

But it still runs.

The engine still has a lot of get up and go because that’s what it was built for. But it will probably get harder (or softer) every year because the car isn’t getting any younger.

Paint job’s ok, but there’s rust, and the chrome is nowhere near what it once was. No way. Pieces fall away every year, now more than ever. But the car still runs, and when I drop the clutch and go, the car sings a symphony better than any new hybrid I’ve ever met in the last 10 years.

So the old horse still has it. Because that was a well-built car in the 60’s, by people who knew how to make a good product, not by their design, just the vehicle that came through them from their ancestors. I like them better. The assembly line technicians that raised me sort of hated working with each other but they put out some good cars. I have three sisters to prove it. We have a solid line.

But this old classic is losing some of its shine, and I can fix that, if I can just get the things going now that I want to now. If new business takes off, the GTO will sing like it did in the sixties, but in today’s world. Better than ever. An old muscle car that can outrun the fastest production car you have coming off the line straight out of college.

Maybe like every guy my age I’m clinging to my youth, but I know I’m not. I like being the age I am. I don’t want to be the fool I once was. There is a whole world ahead of me and for us all, gentlemen. It doesn’t have to be us drowning in our past and drinking the poison hoping all of the people who broke our hearts die. That’s bullshit. you can’t evolve through that. You have to forgive and evolve beyond that. My father once said, “every man dies, not every man lives.” I live by that shit, man.

Forgive everyone. Don’t drink the poison, let go of the bars of your prison and walk the fuck out, gentleman. Doesn’t matter what direction… just take a step.

We’re a bunch of old cars trying to navigate the traffic of today’s world and love again. There are a lot of crazy old cars out there and even more wacky new models, but I believe there are some classics out there still on the road, that would love to pull up along side you and maybe meet up at the drive through for a movie and a milkshake.

Keep driving. She’s out there looking for your too.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish Monday through Friday at 8am EST.

It was concluded that Vicious’ knife, which had gone missing along with Spungen’s money, was the murder weapon.

In the annals of rock musicians fucking up, few entries are more extreme than stabbing your girlfriend to death and claiming not to remember doing it later. In October 1978, bassist Sid Vicious—deep into heroin addiction; his band Sex Pistols having broken up earlier that year—woke up in his room at the Hotel Chelsea in New York to find his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Philly girl) dead in the bathroom with a wound in her abdomen. It was concluded that Vicious’ knife, which had gone missing along with Spungen’s money, was the murder weapon.

Vicious was charged with murder and gave conflicting accounts of what had happened; he said he hadn’t stabbed Spungen, then that he couldn’t remember anything and then that they were fighting and she fell on the knife. He was arrested and charged with murder but not kept in custody and attempted suicide later that month. In December 1978 he got in a fight at a rock show and was arrested and jailed; bailed out in February 1979. The following day, he died of an overdose of heroin at a dinner party. He was cremated and his mother surreptitiously spread his remains over Spungen’s grave.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish Monday through Friday at 8am EST.

The lady at the counter says, “I hope you’re not eating that for Thanksgiving!” I coolly replied, “Oh, no. My daughter loves these things. I always keep them in for her.” (a bold-faced lie)

My family has always celebrated Thanksgiving, but Christmas was always our big holiday. I’m always welcome at my older sister Janice’s house every year. She has a big house and we refer to her place as Holiday Headquarters. There was one year many years ago when I was invited to go to my other sister Gabrielle’s house all the way down in North Wildwood, New Jersey. Back then I was newly divorced, and I just didn’t feel like making the drive all the way down there. My daughter was little then and with her Mom and that side of the family for Thanksgiving. I was just happy that my ex-wife was out of the house and out of my life for that matter. I was looking forward to a day of listening to music, watching movies and eating and drinking. I like to be alone. I’m a very social animal, and I get my energy from those around me, but I just wanted a day of sweet nothing and solitude.

I lived in Woodbury, NJ back then. I drove over to the local convenient store and picked up a box of frozen Ellio’s Pizza. It’s a cheap and tasty treat I have loved since I was a lad. The lady at the counter says, “I hope you’re not eating that for Thanksgiving!” I coolly replied, “Oh, no. My daughter loves these things. I always keep them in for her.” (a bold-faced lie)

That night I happily sat on my sofa watching some cool movies, drinking Ketel One vodka and tonics, and eating my delicious Ellio’s Pizza. I had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving. I was grateful to have a family that cared about me and most of all that little Lorelei was in the world.

So I joked around with my sisters about that day, and of course they felt bad for me. They didn’t want me eating frozen pizza and drinking liquor by myself on Thanksgiving, but that’s what I really wanted to do that day. So it’s sort of become a family joke every year for Thanksgiving. It came up again this year, when I declined my sister’s invitation. It’s not that I didn’t want to see her, but I’ve seen her a lot lately, and my parents have passed, so what’s the point? Once the main anchors of a family die, usually the children retreat to their own little families. She understood and we’ll all get together at her annual holiday party in December at Holiday Headquarters.

I went to the Midtown Diner and had a huge breakfast at the counter. Scrambled eggs, bacon and french toast. It’s too much food, but I crushed it all and it was delicious. I went back to my house and did some writing. Lorelei escaped the clutches of having to spend Thanksgiving with her mother. She went to her boyfriend’s mother’s house. She’s a hard-core vegan and made some really creative dishes. I’m glad she’s happy and I’m sure they were glad to have her there for the holiday.

I finished a chapter, and wanted to get something to eat around 4:30. I left the house and walked down to South street. Everything was closed, but I didn’t feel like going into Walgreens where I’d have to get something to heat up or bake in the oven. Then I looked to the left and remembered there was a new 7-Eleven a block away.

I stopped in and was surprised at all of the people in there buying stuff. Maybe I could start a little Thanksgiving club with them. They could come over with a load of 7-Eleven food and I’d supply the booze. I picked up some things and headed back to the house.

The city was deserted. Dark and eerily quiet because everybody was off doing their family things. I got home, went to my desk and fired up an old episode of Columbo on Netflix. I poured myself a vodka and club soda. I don’t drink Ketel One anymore at home. Too expensive. I only have it out now in a martini, straight up with a twist. My current brand is Platinum X7 by Sazerac. A 1.75 bottle is $20. My favorite thing to mix it with is Polar club soda with lemon that I buy by the liter at Walgreens. I tore open the small bag of Lay’s potato chips. Then opened the box that contained the quarter pound 7-Eleven hot dog, and spread mustard along its length.

Changed it up this year! Wanted to send a pic to all of my sisters but decided against it.

“A man who can sit in a room alone and be satisfied is a man that has found inner peace.” – My Dad

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish Monday through Friday at 8am EST.

Another tale of one man’s journey navigating his way through the dating scene in Philadelphia.

The Demented Doll.

What’s worse than a Train Wreck? That’s right. A Plane Crash! That’s what this chick is.

I was out with my friend Keila (The girl who knows everybody!) one day at Misconduct a couple of years ago. I think she was between boyfriends. Whenever you’re out with Keila she always runs into people that she knows. She runs a Women’s Networking Collective and meets tons of ladies. She holds these events about once a quarter. She’ll get forty to fifty women out for the event. But in that process she becomes acqauinted with all different kinds of women. I’ve found that in all of my years in business that the people that go to these networking events really need it because they don’t know many people, and are trying to grow their business. Some of the craziest women I have met in Philly have come through Keila. First there was Carol. Crazy. Then there was Bibi. Not good. Now this chick. Bad news.

So Keila says; “My friend Harper is going to join us.” I assume it’s someone she’s known for awhile. Nope. Just another one of those “fleas and ticks” types that keep attaching themselves to Keila.

So Harper shows up and she’s a nice looking girl. 28 years old. Tawny hair, a ring through her nose and some ink. I don’t really care for the last two, but she’s kind of hot. I was attracted to her immediately. Back then I couldn’t identify the crazy like I can now. She sits down and we’re all drinking. I’m digging her. She seems artsy and sweet. We leave Misconduct and go over to Crow and the Pitcher on 19th Street in Rittenhouse.

We have a few more drinks there. Crow and the Pitcher has a guy that just handles cheese. He even has this little cart he rolls out and let’s people pick what they want. Keila is flipping out over the cheese guy. She must love cheese. (Rats also like cheese, but more in a later post) Harper’s very flirty. But she’s sort of flirty with everyone, which I don’t care for. It usually means a girl is either easy or a user of people.

So after awhile we leave Crow and walk through Rittenhouse Square. I whip out one of those electronic pens. The vape thing the kids are all doing now instead of smoking real cigarettes. But this has hashish oil in it. So it gets you high. I don’t use it anymore. Just lost interest. Weed was never my thing, but I get why people enjoy it. I just went through a phase where I was smoking weed, because for the first time in my life I worked for a company that didn’t drug test.

So Keila said she was heading out to get her car. Harper asked if she could smoke some of the vape pen with me. Of course I shared. Harper told Keila that she wanted to stay behind with me and hang out some more. So after Keila left, Harper and I sat in the park and smoked some more and then she said we should stop and get one more drink some where else. I started to think that maybe this girl liked me. (That, or she’s an addict of some sort)

But that was not the case.

Harper attaches herself to a host like the sea lamprey she is and will get everything she can out of them. She doesn’t really have any friends because the only people that hang out with her are women who don’t know her well enough, and dudes that want to fuck her. That’s it.

So we get one more drink at Aldine. Aldine is on the second floor right next door to Drinkers Pub at 19th and Chestnut. We chat some more and I start to learn about what a nut she is.

She’s originally from Mississippi. Lived with her Mother and brother. Not too much data on dad. (Red flag) She currently works as an interior designer. She doesn’t have a degree in that or even a license to do that job. She just “read six books on the subject.” That would be like me watching all seven seasons of Mad Men and saying I know how to create and pitch advertising campaigns to international corporations.

She belived in all kind of astrology stuff, tarot cards, and those gem stones that you put around your house for energy and good luck. It’s all nonsense and superstition. This tells me she’s a dumb person and pretends to be more than she is but is so weird people find her off putting.

It’s so painful to be around her once you get to know her that you just want to cut her off and hope you never run into her again. Here’s what happened on different occassions when I was with her.

She doesn’t even use her real last name. Just a shortened version of it she came up with. Even has the fake name on her business cards.

She told me she once shaved her head and buried her hair in the sand on a beach in New York. That’s bat shit crazy.

Once climbed a tree out front of Friday Saturday Sunday (Restaurant in Rittenhouse) and asked me to take pictures of her for Instagram.

I’ll write more about this harpie in two weeks.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish Monday through Friday at 8am EST.

“Jerry Garcia says that we were the druggiest bunch of guys the Grateful Dead ever saw. They were worried about us, so that gives you some idea of how fucked up and crazy we were.”

It may come as a surprise to those whose awareness of Aerosmith began with its commercial hits of the late ’80s and early ’90s, but the band was once a sleazy rock band known for its hardcore drug use—enough to shock the likes of the Grateful Dead. In a 1990 Rolling Stone article on Aerosmith profiling its clean-and-sober comeback, Steven Tyler relayed this anecdote; “Jerry Garcia says that we were the druggiest bunch of guys the Grateful Dead ever saw. They were worried about us, so that gives you some idea of how fucked up and crazy we were.”

Amusing as this might have been, it came at a cost. Sedated in the ’70s, Aerosmith was still unbeatable over a six album run, but as the ’80s dawned, its abilities sagged considerably. The band lost both its guitarists for a dismal album before reuniting for the half-baked Done With Mirrors. Like a lot of Aerosmith album titles, this had a double meaning; they were supposedly going clean. But they weren’t actually done snorting coke off mirrors or any other surface available, and it took a stint in rehab for the entire band to get Aerosmith’s commercial comeback off the ground with the ironically titled Permanent Vacation.

In the documentary The Making Of Pump, Joe Perry describes the difficulties he faced in returning to making music not high on “China White.” Speaking to Rolling Stone, however, Tyler had a different perspective: “I’m still bummed that I didn’t get all the pussy I could have had in the ’70s. We were more interested in the finer blends of cocaine from a shipment of dates that came in on the back of some camel with the stamp of a half-moon on it and the star of Lebanon, which by the way was laced with opium. We were real connoisseurs. That was much more important to me than some girl with big tits.”

It’s hard for me to imagine a more tragic commentary on potential wasted by drug addiction.

I will write more about this band in the near future. They are my favorite rock band of all time.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish Monday through Friday at 8am EST.

Posts navigation

Text Widget

This is a text widget. The Text Widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use a text widget to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Edit them in the Widget section of the Customizer.